A train accident in southern Mexico on Sunday killed at least 13 people and injured more than 100 others, five seriously.
The Interoceanic Train — traveling with 241 passengers and nine crew members — derailed near the small Oaxaca town of Nizanda, about 85 kilometers (53 miles) north of its destination, the port city of Salina Cruz. The train consisted of two locomotives and four carriages.
President Claudia Sheinbaum expressed her condolences for the deaths and immediately ordered Navy Minister Admiral Raymundo Morales to travel to the site of the incident. The Naval Ministry (Semar) manages the Interoceanic Train’s operations.
Sheinbaum also sent a team from the Social Security Institute for Federal Government Employees (ISSSTE) to the area to attend to the injured.
“The ISSSTE team is on site, and I will travel to Oaxaca to speak with the families,” Sheinbaum said Monday morning.
Investigators from the Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) and the state prosecutor’s office have been working to establish the chain of custody and secure the scene, Sheinbaum said.
In a statement on social media, Attorney General Ernestina Godoy said agents from the FGR office in Oaxaca, as well as forensics experts from the Criminal Investigations Agency, were coordinating with federal and state authorities to carry out the respective investigations.
“There will be a rigorous analysis to determine the cause of this accident,” Sheinbaum said, adding that the Transportation Regulatory Agency is required to conduct a review, while Semar will clear and rehabilitate the tracks where necessary.
The accident reportedly happened as the train passed through a curve. Though there have been no official statements as to the cause of the accident, the news magazine Proceso reported that a Semar official said the main locomotive derailed, taking the remaining cars off the track.
Arturo Medina, undersecretary of Human Rights at the Interior Ministry (Segob), indicated that each family that lost someone due to the derailment will have the support of a public servant “for the procedures, actions and arrangements, to make this difficult moment less complicated.”
He said an interdisciplinary team was deployed from the outset to visit hospitals and provide direct assistance to the injured and their families. Segob also activated an emergency phone number — 55-2230-2106 — to allow citizens to obtain official information about the condition of the injured and deceased.
Mexico’s navy minister told reporters on Monday that nine victims of the crash were treated at the scene and released, 108 were taken to hospitals and 44 remain hospitalized. While lamenting that 13 deaths had been confirmed, he said the body of one of the victims had yet to be recovered.
Semar deployed a total of 360 personnel, 20 vehicles, four ground ambulances, three air ambulances and a tactical drone for the search and rescue operations.
The Interoceanic Train was inaugurated in 2023 by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the centerpiece of a US $2.8 billion project to boost train travel in southern Mexico and develop infrastructure within the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
With reports from El Universal, Milenio, Animal Político and Proceso
